Iran

Iran,formerly known asPersia,officially theIslamic Republic of Iran(IRI), is a country insouthwestern Eurasia.It is bordered to the northwest byArmenia,thede factoindependentNagorno-Karabakh Republic,andAzerbaijan;withKazakhstanandRussiaacross theCaspian Sea;to the northeast byTurkmenistan;to the east byAfghanistanandPakistan;to the south by thePersian Gulfand theGulf of Oman;and to the west byTurkeyandIraq.Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2 (636,372 sq mi), it is the second-largest nation in theMiddle Eastand the 18th-largest in the world; with 78.4 million inhabitants, Iran is the world's 17th most populous nation. It is the only country that has both a Caspian Sea andIndian Oceancoastline. Iran has long been ofgeostrategicimportance because of its central location inEurasiaandWestern Asia,and its proximity to theStrait of Hormuz.

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ThePersian Constitutional Revolutionof 1906 established the nation'sfirst parliament,which operated within aconstitutional monarchy.Following acoup d'étatby theU.K.and the U.S. in 1953, Iran gradually became autocratic. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression culminated in theIranian Revolution,which led to the end of theImperial State of Iranand the establishment of anIslamic republicon 1 April 1979.Tehranis the capital and largest city, serving as the cultural, commercial, and industrial center of the nation. Its current head of state is Supreme LeaderAli Khamenei,and its current head of government is President [[Masoud Pezeshkian ]].

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
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I toiled for thirty years with devotion,To breathe life into Iranian promotion. I laid the foundation of a lofty palace, Immune to the storm and the rain's malice. ~Ferdowsi

Deep is the primitive belief that it is theAnglo-Saxonswho are the puppet masters of everything that happens in Iran. ~Christopher Hitchens

A

• The Islamic Republic of Iran is the manifestation of true democracy in the region. The discourse of the Iranian nation is focused on respect for the rights of human beings and a quest fortranquility,peace,justiceand development for all throughmonotheism.
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Address to the United Nations General Assembly(17 September 2005)

• If all of you gather – and also invite your ancestors from hell – you will not be able to stop the Iranian nation.
  • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,quoted in"Big Six Spank Iran",New York Post(16 March 2007)

E

• The American people have the greatest respect and admiration for the Iranian people. Your Kings fromCyrusandDariusare known among those famous monarchs who have advanced the cause of humanity. Your scientists have contributed to the foundations on which we have built our industrial society. Your philosophers and poets have enriched the culture of the west.
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower,toast at a luncheon given in his honor by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (December 14, 1959), as quoted in Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley,The American Presidency Project,Online

F

• Where are your valiant warriors and your priests? Where are your hunting parties and your feasts? Where is that warlike mien, and where are those? Great armies that destroyed our country's foes?... Count Iran as a ruin, as the lair of lions and leopards! Look now and despair!
  • Ferdowsi,as quoted byReza Aslanin"The Epic of Iran",The New York Times(30 April 2006)

• Kaiumers first sat upon the throne of Persia, and was master of the world.
  • Ferdowsi,as quoted in"Persia's crowning glory",BBC(4 June 2000)

G

• Everything I learned about Iranians, I learned working in the pool room. I met a lot of liars, and I know Iranians are liars.
  • Lindsey Graham,as quoted in"Republican conference: Day two - Bush 'proud' of family"by Anthony Zurcher,BBC News(22 May 2015)

H

• بده ساقی می باقی که در جنت نخواهی یافت
  کنار آب رکنآباد و گلگشت مصلا را
• Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow,
  And bid thy pensive heart be glad,
  Whate’er the frowning zealots say:
  Tell them their Eden cannot show
  A stream so clear asRocnabad,
  A bow’r so sweet as Moselláy.
  • Hafez,fromShirazi Turk,as translated by Sir William Jones inA Grammar of the Persian Language(1771) andPoems, consisting chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages(1772)

• One of the signs of Iran's underdevelopment is the culture of rumor and paranoia that attributes all ills to the manipulation of variousdemonsand satans. And, of course, the long and rich history ofBritishimperial intervention in Persia does provide some support for the notion. But you have no idea how deep is the primitive belief that it is theAnglo-Saxons—more than theCIA,more even than theJews—who are the puppet masters of everything that happens in Iran.
  • Christopher Hitchens,"Persian Paranoia",Slate(June 22, 2009)

• Persicos odi, puer, apparatus.
  • My lad, I hate Persian pomp.
  • Horace,Odes,i, 38, as translated by Owen Lee,Word, Sound, and Image in the Odes of Horace(1969), Ch. 5

K

• The country’s air defense headquarters informs the honorable people of Iran that, despite previous warnings from the officials of theIslamicRepublic to thecriminaland illegalIsraeliregime to refrain from any provocative actions, this illegitimate regime launched an attack early this morning onmilitarysites in the provinces ofTehran,w:Khuzestan,andIlam.

The unified air defense system successfully intercepted and countered this aggressive action, though limited damage was incurred at some points, which is currently under investigation

• • Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Command according toIran Air Defense Forces: Israel Attacks Caused Limited Damage(October 26, 2024)

P

• Foreign travellers in Iran, not only recently but in previous generations, have observed that some of our citizens habitually lie… In our culture, steeped in history as we are, some liars actually try to explain and justify their behaviour by referring back to past national catastrophes. For example, they will tell you, whenMongol hordes overran the country,lyingwas the price to pay for personalsurvival;and that gave us the habit of mendacity. Whatever its merits as an historical explanation, this point of view certainly offers a pitifully weak justification for today's liars.
  • Muhammad Reza Pahlavi,Mission for my Country(1961), p. 246

• I found that many Americans did not even know that a country named Iran existed, let alone what it was like. Even among the diplomatic corps and among well-educated people, there was a vagueness about who the Iranians were or what the culture was, a tendency to confuse Iran withIraqor to mistakenly assume that Iran is an Arab country simply because it is an Islamic nation. This fuzziness about the world outside is unique to America; among theintelligensiaof European countries, for example, there is generally a higher level of awareness and information regarding cultures other than their own.
  • Ashraf Pahlavi,Faces in a Mirror(Prentice Hall, 1980), p. 100

• [The US will send an advanced anti-missile system — andUStroops to operate it — toIsrael] to help bolster Israel’s air defenses following Iran’s unprecedented attacks against Israel on April 13 and again on October 1
  • Pentagonaccording toUS to deploy about 100 troops to operate advanced anti-missile system in Israel amid heightened tensions(October 13, 2024)

S

• In Iran, the walls of homes are transparent and the halls ofjusticeare opaque.
  • Joe Stork, on the ‘morality’ campaign, as quoted in"Iran: End Arrests on Immorality Charges",Human Rights News(17 May 2007)

• The Persians ruled for a thousand years and did not need us Arabs even for a day. We have been ruling them for one or two centuries and cannot do without them for an hour.
  • Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik(717), in Bertold Spuler,The Muslim World,Vol. I: The Age of the Caliphs (Leiden: Brill, 1960), p. 29

See also

• Imperial State of Iran